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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

HONORING PAUL & ESLANDA ROBESON

In a Black History Month special, Democracy Now remembers the lives of the legendary
civil rights activist, singer and actor Paul Robeson and his wife
Eslanda, whose story is not as well known. One of the most celebrated
singers and actors of the 20th century, Robeson was attacked,
blacklisted and hounded by the government for his political beliefs.

Eslanda Robeson, known by her friends as "Essie," was an author, an
anthropologist and a globally connected activist who worked to end
colonialism in Africa and racism in the United States.

Democracy Now is joined by
historian Barbara Ransby, author of the new biography, "Eslanda: The
Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson."

"Paul Robeson's steadfast campaign for civil rights in America made his acquiescence to Stalinism all the more tragic. There were many American communists who recanted once they understood the nature of the crimes committed in the USSR. There remained, however, a psychological conflict among those who understood, yet whose pride or ideology culd not allow them to admit their error. Robeson's actions and speeches had justified, and therefore contributed to, the crimes of Stalinism, and for that at least, he was morally culpable."

Tim Tzouliadis, "The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia," p. 327.

If one were to pick the two biggest American villains in the tragedy that Tzouliadis so well describes, they would be Ambassador Joseph E. Davies and Robeson. In the memoirs of one of those American victims, Robert Robinson ("Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union"), Robeson, who rebuffed the urgent appeal of his fellow black American, Robinson, to help him escape the Russian nightmare, Robeson was the biggest villain.